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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904004">SLOWLY</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grendoc/pseuds/Grendoc'>Grendoc</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Nightmare on Elm Street - All Media Types, Watchmen - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Budding Love, Can I truly offer you anything more, Developing Relationship, Feelings, Freddy Krueger Feels, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Like actually sleeping together, M/M, Nothing extremely bad, Pre-Relationship, Rorschach Feels, Shyness, Sleeping Together, Traumatized people learning to love each other gently despite their rough edges, friends to implied lovers, hand-holding, learning to trust each other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:49:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904004</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grendoc/pseuds/Grendoc</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Freddy crouches, offers a hand he knows Rorschach won’t take — “Come to bed.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Freddy Krueger/Rorschach (Watchmen)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>SLOWLY</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
<p></p><div class=""><p>     “When I told you to sleep over, I didn’t mean sleep on the floor.”</p></div><div class=""><p>     Freddy regards Rorschach with his hands on his hips and Rorschach, to his end, looks indifferent.</p></div><div class=""><p>     He had not asked for a blanket, or a pillow, nor had he stolen one — no, Rorschach had simply hugged his knees to his chest, tucked his shirt over top of them and kept himself in a ball.</p></div><div class=""><p>     On the bathroom tile.</p></div><div class=""><p>     Alone.</p></div><div class=""><p>     And hey, listen — Freddy’s seen his little buddy do a lot of weird and fucked up shit, in the years they’ve been acquainted. The man’s eaten food still frozen, gnawing raw ground beef into sinewy, slobbery strings, halfway through a package before Freddy caught him in the act and tore it away from him; has used dish soap as shampoo, and hemorrhoid cream as toothpaste, and taste-tested the dishwasher pods ‘just to know what it was like.’</p></div><div class=""><p>     Krueger’s no stranger to not-knowing-how-to-act-human, but Rorschach is on a whole other planet, always, and sometimes — like right now — it’s not funny, it’s just fucking <em>sad</em>.</p></div><div class=""><p>     “You do not have couch,” Rorschach supplies, and Freddy narrows his eyes.</p></div><div class=""><p>     “I meant my bed.”</p></div><div class=""><p>     “But <em>you’re</em> in —”</p></div><div class=""><p>     “Like, come and sleep <em>with</em> me, in my <em>bed</em>, while I’m <em>in</em> it, genius. <em>Yeah</em>.”</p></div><div class=""><p>     They lock eyes.</p></div><div class=""><p>     Freddy bores down expectantly; does not relent.</p></div><div class=""><p>     Rorschach recoils and Freddy wants to be offended, but it isn’t his place — he’s also no stranger to allegations of ‘sexual misconduct,’ especially amongst other men, and besides — they share a trauma. A phobia. A rational fear. Long before the days of relative acceptance, they are: Freddy Krueger is known to sleep around with anything that’ll have him (<em>something-something-self-worth-dependent-on-validation </em>...), but Rorschach is not as appalled by the implication of <em>sexuality</em> as he is the implication of <em>sex</em>. Freddy knows bigotry, and Freddy also knows anxiety. Rorschach wears the face of the latter, no matter <em>what</em> stupid bullshit’s about to come out of his mouth.</p></div><div class=""><p>     Freddy braces himself for an empty, venomous accusation of homosexuality that does not come.</p></div><div class=""><p>     Rorschach has sat up, back against the toilet bowl, hands folded in his lap. His eyes are lost — Freddy knows, because they do not focus — they wander. He looks anywhere except Fred’s eyes.</p></div><div class=""><p>     “... Going to touch me.”</p></div><div class=""><p>     “I’m not,” as gently as he wishes anyone would speak to him. Freddy crouches, offers a hand he knows Rorschach won’t take — “Come to bed.”</p></div><div class=""><p>     “Going to wait until I’m asleep.” His face is burning. Freddy knows why, and elects not to draw attention to the color in Ror’s cheeks.</p></div><div class=""><p>     “Just come to bed,” hands on Rorschach’s knees. Briefly. He removes them when he feels Rorschach stiffen for a kick, and stands, and turns to leave.</p></div><div class=""><p>     They end up in Freddy’s bed, of course. Rorschach tends to give Freddy his way.</p></div><div class=""><p>     It’s as strange as he imagined it’d be: Krueger does not make a habit of inviting anyone into his bed (into his pants, yes — but into his bed? Surely not), and Rorschach does not make a habit of sleeping near another living thing. So easily Freddy could tear out his throat; so quickly Rorschach could desecrate Freddy’s space ... they lie, in discomforted silence, on their backs, side-by-side, studying the orbit of the ceiling fan.</p></div><div class=""><p>     The popcorn ceiling makes shapes like faces. Rorschach watches them change expression behind the blades. A dull electric hum, a shifting of sheets: Freddy gets up once to piss, but Rorschach does not notice his absence until the mattress sinks with the weight of his return.</p></div><div class=""><p>     It is a long time they spend this way; then, Rorschach’s pinky curls around Freddy’s. Fred looks over, and his eyes are closed.</p></div><div class=""><p>     “Are you —”</p></div><div class=""><p>     “No,” says Rorschach, because he’s not. “Awake.”</p></div><div class=""><p>     “Oh.”</p></div><div class=""><p>     Crickets.</p></div><div class=""><p>     Freddy wants to turn his body to face Rorschach’s, but he doesn’t — he <em>can’t</em> — because Rorschach is like a fresh baby deer and Freddy, for all his viciousness, doesn’t care to startle him away. Red curls frame that face like an angel and Freddy wants to kiss him, almost, but he promised he wouldn’t touch. No matter how long he’s wanted it. He promised.</p></div><div class=""><p>     And Rorschach trusts him. Rorschach is beside him, quiet in his bed. Rorschach is touching him — albeit, barely — Rorschach followed ...</p></div><div class=""><p>     Rorschach <em>trusts</em> that Freddy Krueger told the truth.</p></div><div class=""><p>     (He wants to break that, almost, just to prove how wrong he is for it. He wants to push the boundary because the boundary is there. He is rooted to the bed. He is pinned on his back by an unseen hand —)</p></div><div class=""><p>     Small, pale fingers find the spaces between Freddy’s, slow, tentative, and Freddy squeezes the palm pressed flush to his own without ever asking why.</p></div><div class=""><p>     Neither one of them draw closer. Neither pull away. They don’t dare; they don’t speak; they hardly breathe. Freddy exhales a shuddering breath and lets his eyes lid over.</p></div><div class=""><p>     They sleep, there. It is never anything more. But they sleep, and for a moment, together, they don’t have to pretend to be human at all.</p></div></div>
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